


No Cause Left

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2009 [15]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Super Angst, old fic, suicidal character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:07:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days she can't remember what she's fighting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Cause Left

**Author's Note:**

> Horizon requested Buffy, the Vampire Slayer/Supernatural, Buffy/Dean, _Some days she can’t remember what it is she’s fighting for._
> 
> 2009 repost.

+

Some days she can’t remember what it is she’s fighting for.

Dean recognizes those days by the amount of food left on her plate and by the broken look in her eyes. 

Waitresses in diners look at him strangely when he orders for her without her consent and they glare when they take most of the meal back to the kitchen half an hour later. Sam sits next to them, the look on his face saying his puppy just died, along with the rest of his family and all hope.

He tries to draw his brother’s girlfriend into conversation and fails when her look remains blank and her reactions sleepwalker slow. She barely speaks and flinches at any touch, barely tolerates lights and sounds.

She just exists and Dean knows that before her mind’s eye, visions of heaven and eternal peace sprawl endlessly while, in the real world, she struggled just to convince herself to draw the next breath and keep her body alive.

He never knew her before she died, only met her when she already had these days, that look in her eye, but sometimes he misses the girl she must have been so bad it hurts. Because she can be bright and loud and happy and he would have liked to see how she was before. She must have shone like the sun.

Some days, she still gets close.

Others she forgets why. Why she gets up, why she breathes and moves and eats and speaks and kills monsters. She forgets why the blood and tears and painful, human imperfections. She forgets that on good days, she loves him.

Before noon, on those days, Sam will yell at Dean to do something, anything. Dean will walk out on his brother, ignoring the painful accusations of not caring. He cares. He cares too much and he couldn’t stand it if he tried to help and she flinched at his touch. And she would. 

So he keeps his hands to himself, steers her as best as he can and wonders what keeps her here. If she can’t remember what she fights for, why does she keep doing it? Is it duty? Is it the lack of another option? Is it love? Sometimes he fancies that it’s him that keeps her here. Him that makes her breathe. 

Most of the time the suffocating weight of that idea makes him choke.

He watches her and waits for her to come back. He waits for her to remember. And eventually, she always does.

She remembers. 

And she rises and she fights and kicks and punches and she’s the most gorgeous and deadly thing he’s ever laid his eyeballs on. Amen.

One night, after she comes out of her funk and Sam finishes smothering her, they lie in bed together, her half on top of him, curled into his chest and he finds it in himself to ask, “Why do you stay?”

He holds his breath as hope and horror war inside of him, holds it until she smoothes one hand over his heart, a silent command to resume beating. 

He breathes.

She says, “I don’t know.”

Then she buries her face in his shoulder and feigns sleep, knowing he’ll still be there tomorrow. 

He always is.

+


End file.
